Ms Akane Katsu¹, Ms Anne Darton², Ms Wai Yin Chan³, Ms Rachel Edmondson¹, Ms Andrea Mc Kittrick¹, Ms Michelle McSweeney³, Ms Cheri Templeton⁴, Ms Kate Thompson⁴, Ms Louisa Wardrope³, Ms Stephanie Wicks⁴

¹Severe Burns Unit, Royal North Shore Hospital, ²NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, Statewide Burn Injury Service, ³Severe Burns Unit, Concord Hospital, ⁴Severe Burns Unit, Children’s Hospital at Westmead

Abstract:
Since the inception of the New South Wales (NSW) Statewide Burn Injury Service (SBIS) in 2004, the Physiotherapy (PT) Occupational Therapy (OT) Special Interest Group (SIG) has led in the education of burn rehabilitation in NSW. In addition, to providing face-to-face education to medical, nursing and allied health staff, the group has also published local clinical practice guidelines specific to the provision of burn care in NSW. These consensus guidelines are intended to support therapists new to the area of burn care and who do not work in the acute burn care setting.

As part of its ongoing commitment to continuing education, the PT OT SIG have now embarked on producing a burn rehabilitation competency list to further aid in the clinical education of therapists new to burn rehabilitation who manage burn patients in their local setting. While other competencies already exist (Parry et al., 2011; Parry et al., 2017), the group’s objective is for these guidelines and competency list to empower local therapists to learn and care for their burn patients using accessible, up-to-date clinical practices based on sound principles of burn therapy and standardisation of care in NSW.

Biography:
Akane is the Senior Burns/Plastics Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist in the Severe Burn Injury Unit, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia. With over 12 years experience in burn injury management, Akane is dedicated to providing quality patient care. She is passionate about education and her clinical expertise is in rehabilitation of major burn injury patients and plastic surgery patients with complex care needs including lymphoedema.